Collectivism v. Individualism - Page 4

On April 27 2010 21:58 LunarC wrote:
I see that there is a lot of discussion of what exactly is right and wrong. I'll try and explain from a position that I believe to be similar to the Original Poster's mindset, which is at least his mindset in principle, if not in practice.

Assuming a human is composed simply of a single consciousness, that means that the individual is limited to a single perspective and a single experience. I think it's safe to say that OP considers a person to be a collection of individual ideas and morals defined by the individual for the individual's self, and that individuals are too separate to achieve any sort of complete and entirely identical mindset or values. In short, none of these "perceived morals" and "influences" are real and are simply a imposition of principles on self. Thus, "right" and "wrong" become things an individuals decides for the self, and cannot be posited on others.

I have examined your claims, and my comments follow. (Bold = your premises)

1. A collective is a group of individuals.

- Yes, a collective is a group of individuals. It is also worthy to be noted that each individual of a collective understands the goal of the collective to a certain extent, but actual consistency of goals is not always the case. Important to note is that the individual identifies with the collective, but actual consistency of goals can be elicited upon careful examination of the collective's stated position and the individual's position.

2. An individual cannot know what others think or want.

- Physically this is a true claim, but then you are undermining the purpose of communication. Of course, completely undiluted communication is difficult without specific definitions and claims, but I believe I addressed how to determine the actual consistency of claims and mindset when I addressed point 1. That is, communication is the attempt to transmit information across barriers between individual consciousnesses, and the success of this endeavor is verifiable.

- To address whether the act of verifying claims itself is prone to misinformation/misinterpretation, that is a simple limit that is consistent with your second claim. Unfortunately, it's the best we have, aside from other methods of verification.

3. Individuals can only afflict other individuals by actions, and can only *assume* what other individuals think by their actions.

- Examining action is one such other method of verification. However, action can also be as subversive as communication, so examination of action is still an interpretive method. Again, verbal claims and physical acts are the best ways to verify an individual's true intention. It is not foolproof, but due to a lack of omniscience, humans are limited to interpretation to make sense of the such things as "another individual's intent".

4. Individuals always act on the best means known to be available to fulfill their goals.

- If by "best" you mean "ideal according to individual judgment", then it can be stated that, if certain ideas are important enough to the individual, the individual will attempt actions to further those ideas in the form of goals.

- There are, however, moral limitations on action as well as thought and speech. Yes, they are entirely within the consciousness of the individual. That does not make them any less tangible nor does it render them insignificant. That is simply an indelible quality of a societal more.

- The collectivist is wrong when he says he knows whats best for anyone but himself, breaking premise #2, since he cannot know other people's goals are. (he can only assume per #3)

- Assume is a word that, well, assumes little forethought. I'd prefer to say that he can only interpret others' goals. Trying to remove individual responsibility for thought and action from the individual is a critical error because of your premises 1 and 4, meaning that an individual can only certainly know what the self wants, and actions taken by the individual is up to the individual's own judgment. So, we cannot, and the collectivist cannot, be entirely exempt from responsibility for individual action.

- As an audience of the collectivist, we can only interpret his claims as individuals and decide whether we agree or not based upon our own judgment. Therefore, we have no right to claim that he is wrong, because we will be laying claim to an ultimate "truth" of him being invariably wrong. We can only interpret his claims and actions for ourselves.

- Definition of Interpretation: Based upon our individual morals and convictions, which we must know by premise 1 (which I agree with), we pass judgment on another's claims after extensive consideration and thought.

- Even if he was right in his assumptions, he could NEVER know if he was right unless he allows the man to act freely. (#3+#4)

- There can be subversion in action as well as communication. Again, you can only interpret his actions and claims as an individual.

- The collectivist will often concede the above points then proceed to claim that he knows whats best for the common good, a fictitious entity per #1

- The "common good" is an individual's interpretation of what is right, even if that individual derives all or most ideas from a claimed collective. Again, I have said that the collectivist as well as the audience can only be certain of individual thoughts, as per your premise 1, and that though we cannot know, we can interpret. Frankly, that's all we can do.

- Your example revolves solely around solid proof, yet that cannot be how everything in the world should be substantiated, because not everything in the world can be verified that way. We can only draw conclusions based on our own judgment, precedent, and experiences. More on this sort of "false until proven correct" mindset later.

- The collectivist then keeps equivocating anyways, doing and saying whatever *he* feels like doing (according to premise #4 ofc). nothing particularly wrong w\ this, at least he's honest by then. (thug 4 lief)


- This is adopting a policy of disassociation. Basically you choose to disagree with each other. Unfortunately, this results in inaction, and it must follow that inaction will do nothing to solve an apparent issue or problem. Even though we as individuals have the luxury to skirt differences and abstain from compromising others' convictions with the benefit of not needing to compromise our own convictions, government often cannot afford to do such a thing. As an individual, I also believe that such an approach to dichotomy is unproductive. More on this kind of mindset later.


So without getting into morals, (morals don't exist in reality btw I'll leave it at that, np) this is basically why thinking collectively even with the "best" (or should I say, altruistic) intentions never works, and as a rule of thumb, I suggest that whatever your assumptions on human behavior and societal organization are, do it voluntarily. If it's not voluntary, it's not worth it, and it will never prove anything.

- Already established that morals are an individual's choice to conform to an established set of values.

- Perhaps you are saying that the "best" intentions are purely subjective and are not justification for making any one idea the "ideal". This is true.

- Involuntary action will be inconsistent with individual thought, but again, there is an over-reliance on objective proof. Is there really a need to prove something to someone through voluntary action? Perhaps rather than proof for the sake of verification, what is being sought is an example for the sake of interpretation, because many of the things your examples are dealing with are not concrete and rely on interpretation to make sense of them. It all comes back to individual interpretation.

- You say that collective thought is ineffective because it is no more credible than individual thought. Then forget the collective. Focus on the individual or the ideas behind the collective rather than looking to the collective itself for credibility.

On mindset:

Problem I observe with the OP's mindset. It is too concerned with objectifying entirely humanistic concerns. Simply posing a claim and systematically refuting dissent and/or counter viewpoints is a common pastime on the internet, and unfortunately that is how many individuals handle their arguments.

What is the result? A cut-off from external ideas and influence; a withdrawal into self. There is no intent to assimilate, there is only intent to defend. There is no intent on either side to try and achieve synthesis, only an effort made to maintain dichotomy. And people agree to disagree. This is entirely unproductive in and of itself, because the difference is there, but the evolution of ideas and thought ends where individuals refuse to resolve or assimilate conflicting ideas. This is also the problem facing much of political thought and debate as well, because motivation is not a collective thing, but is an individual concern. Judgment through sound interpretation is key.

On Interpretation:

Since it seems like all instances of communication and observation relies on the subsequent interpretation, what is the ideal way to go about doing this? Well, that's where the entire body of philosophical thought, religious thought, and psychology within historical contexts is completely necessary. There exists a huge history of human thought that already exists which all provide solid bases from which we can develop our own basis for interpretation. Focusing on the ideas and methods presented throughout each and every text and examining how ideas related to context is key to opening our own capacity for interpretation. Why do I tout this as truth? It is not necessarily truth, but it's rather evident that through educating ourselves with ideas, progression of human thought, how dichotomies are dealt with, and exploring various mindsets through examining such works will serve to do nothing but to expand our own capacity for thought.